SPRINGFIELD - The Police Department's ShotSpotter system led to the arrests Monday morning of two armed suspects wearing body armor.

Sgt. John M. Delaney, aide to Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet, said the audio surveillance system sent police to 44 Marble St. in the city's South End after it detected shots fired shortly before 2 a.m.

An anonymous phone also alerted police to the gunshots, police said.

Hector Alvarado

Officers Jose Canini and Richard Jarvis, responding to 44 Marble St., saw one of the suspects had a hand inside his jacket. Canini, conducting a pat frisk, could feel the suspect was wearing a bullet-proof vest, Delaney said.

The suspect was hiding a 9mm Ruger semi-automatic gun that was still warm to the touch, indicating that it had been recently fired, police said.

Canini observed a second suspect of toss a handgun into the snow. He, too, was wearing a bullet-proof vest. The recovered weapon was also a semi-automatic 9 mm Ruger, Delaney said.

It is unusual, but not unheard of, for police to encounter suspects wearing body armor, Capt. Eugene C. Dexheimer said. "But, it's not something that we do on a routine basis," he said.

Delaney said police are still attempting to determine why the suspects were armed and wearing body armor. The officers determined at the scene on Marble Street that the bullets did not strike anyone or anything.

"They could have been testing the guns before they went to commit whatever crime they were going to do," Delaney said.

Alexander Rodriguez, 36, of 99 Oswego St., and Hector Alvarado, 35, of 16 Bayonne St., Apt. 3L, were charged with carrying a firearm without a license, use of body armor in a felony and possession of ammunition without an FID card, police said.

Rodriguez, the first suspect arrested, was also charged with discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling, possession of a high capacity magazine and possessing a firearm with a defaced serial number, police said.

Police questioned a third man at the scene but did not arrest him, Delaney said.

Police installed the ShotSpotter system last July in high-crime neighborhoods. At a cost of $450,000, the city installed 62 audio sensors and the operating software provided by ShotSpotter Inc., a California company.